USN-1140-1: PAM vulnerabilities
30 May 2011
An attacker could cause PAM to read or delete arbitrary files or cause it to crash.
Releases
Packages
- pam - Pluggable Authentication Modules
Details
Marcus Granado discovered that PAM incorrectly handled configuration files
with non-ASCII usernames. A remote attacker could use this flaw to cause a
denial of service, or possibly obtain login access with a different users
username. This issue only affected Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. (CVE-2009-0887)
It was discovered that the PAM pam_xauth, pam_env and pam_mail modules
incorrectly handled dropping privileges when performing operations. A local
attacker could use this flaw to read certain arbitrary files, and access
other sensitive information. (CVE-2010-3316, CVE-2010-3430, CVE-2010-3431,
CVE-2010-3435)
It was discovered that the PAM pam_namespace module incorrectly cleaned the
environment during execution of the namespace.init script. A local attacker
could use this flaw to possibly gain privileges. (CVE-2010-3853)
It was discovered that the PAM pam_xauth module incorrectly handled certain
failures. A local attacker could use this flaw to delete certain unintended
files. (CVE-2010-4706)
It was discovered that the PAM pam_xauth module incorrectly verified
certain file properties. A local attacker could use this flaw to cause a
denial of service. (CVE-2010-4707)
Update instructions
The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions:
Ubuntu 8.04
Ubuntu 11.04
Ubuntu 10.10
Ubuntu 10.04
In general, a standard system update will make all the necessary changes.